N.Z. ‘prime market for drugs’

Press, 8 October 1988, Page 5

N.Z. ‘prime market for drugs’

PA Wellington New Zealand is a prime new market for Asian drug traffickers facing high production and falling prices at home, the Minister of Police, Mr Tapsell, said yesterday.

Political instability in Burma had left drug producers and traffickers “virtually unmolested” to grow and process raw opium and heroin and have it shipped out of the area. Therefore, there were much larger stocks of the drugs available. Last month Mr T'apsell visited police commissioners and the heads of narcotics bureaux in Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong and Tokyo who had briefed him on drug production and trafficking in the area. "All the commissioners told me that they were aware that a great deal more of the opium deriva-

tives were coming on the market there, the price was falling and they were quite certain that the traffickers would be looking for new markets and that both Australia and New Zealand are an obvious market,” he said. New Zealand was still virtually a new market for drugs, it did not have a very heavy drug surveillance organisation and the population was relatively affluent. Mr Tapsell said as far as he knew there was no evidence of a big jump in importation of either coca-leaf derivatives or opiates, or the synthetic derivatives such as crack or LSD, but he was concerned about it.